After Jason and Burton had done some logistics using the unregistered equipment on the base, and Burton had loaded the software and satellite hookups needed in the new laptop, Burton had put on his leathers and left to do recon, while Jason and Cotton made their way back to Victoriana, where all financial indicators said the mistress lived. The apartment building had condominium-style units—two stories, with the entrance being at the bottom. Cotton told Jason to “Just, you know, ninja your way in while I do the rest.”
Jason had given Lee the sort of resigned and yet hunted look of a man approaching his forties who thought all his “ninja skills” were long behind him, but who would not tell his younger lover that if it saved his own life.
Hey, Lee was eight years older than Ernie—he didn’t have much room to lecture Jason on finding a suitable mate, and he wasn’t going to try to find that room now.
And now, viewing Cotton through a high-tech pair of binoculars as he swaggered up to this woman’s door, he thought maybe they’d all underestimated Jason’s baby boy.
With a tap of his earbud and another one on his phone, Burton tuned in to what Cotton was saying over the din of a small yapping dog that just would not fucking quit.
“Hi, ma’am, I’m so sorry to bother you—oh, baby.” Cotton crouched down in front of the woman and held out his hands. The dog—all fluff and overbite, a Pomeranian maybe?—jumped right into his arms. “Isn’t she the cutest thing! What’s her name?”
“Barbie,” the woman said, her voice breathy. She’d answered the door in a frothy pink bathrobe over what appearedto be a matching negligee, and Burton applauded her courage. She wasn’t slender or young, but she seemed to love pink and froth and happy things. Poor woman. Burton wondered what she was doing with a giant banana slug like Arlen Cuthbert.
“Well, she likes to nibble, doesn’t she!” Cotton laughed as the thing tried to lick/eat his face.
“She’s—c’mere, sweetheart,” the woman crooned, holding out her hands, and then she smiled shyly at Cotton. “You’re really nice about her. She’s really badly behaved, and you calmed her down super fast. I’m sorry about that.” She let out a breath. “My boyfriend just left, and shereallyhates him. It takes a while to calm her down.”
Burton’s eyes popped open.Justleft? Shit. For the five-hundredth time that day he cursed that he was working with aphonesystem, because he couldn’t whisper “Cuthbert in motion” to everybody over radio and earbuds. Goddammit, he and Jason were going to requisition some spare equipment and pretend it got lost, even if he had to forge somebody’s name on that shit.
“That’s too bad,” Cotton murmured, chucking the little hell-creature under the chin. While Burton watched, Jason flashed two light blinks from the woman’s top window, a signal for “I’m in,” while Cotton continued to charm this woman at 5:45 in the fucking morning. “I hope your boyfriend’s nice to you,” he was saying softly. “A lot of times our pets know when we’re not being treated well.”
“Not so much,” the woman said, her voice shaking. Burton felt for her, and he admired her courage as she tried to get hold of herself. “I’m sorry—you wanted something when you knocked on my door—I don’t need to trauma-dump all over you.”
“Not at all,” Cotton said, his voice throbbing with empathy. “In fact, I’m sort of here for the same reason. My date sort of kicked me out of bed before his alarm rang—”
“You mean Leon? That asshole,” she said before Cotton could answer. “He’s such a closet case. Let me guess—he took you to bed because you were the one he was going to come out for and then kicked you out of the apartment before his girlfriend could come pick him up for work.”
“Oh my God!” Cotton said, and Burton had to hide a laugh because it sounded like a genuine reaction.
“I know, honey,” Cuthbert’s girlfriend said, patting his sleeve. “You’re not the first guy who’s come to my door because their car got blocked in.”
Cotton blinked, and Burton did too. He’d thought this was aterribleidea, and he’d tried to tell Cotton that, but Cotton had simply smiled and told him that Shelley Cooper, Cuthbert’s girlfriend, could either be a trashy cow, in which case Cotton knew how to whore like the best of them, or she’d be a lot like Cotton was before he’d met Jason.
All she’d want in that case, he’d said, was a friend.
“Not blocked in,” he said. “I just need to come in and call my brother for a lift. My phone lost charge—he wouldn’t even let me hook it up.”
“Oh no. That Leon’s anasshole,” she said, so much sympathy in her voice, Burton actually felt for her. Then Cotton reached out and feathered a touch across her wrist. Burton couldn’t see that well, but by the way the woman retreated and covered herself, Burton knew he’d seen too much.
“Your boyfriend is too,” he said gently. “Did he do this?”
She gave a miserable little shrug, and Burton wanted to massage the bridge of his nose. Shit.
“He….” Her voice wobbled. “Man, he showed up at eleven last night and locked his gun orsomethingin my gun safe, threw me on the bed, and”—her voice broke a little—“and fell asleep. This morning he ran out of here so fast I think he forgot his gun! I know I didn’t hear the safe open.”
“Well,” Cotton said, all big brown eyes, “how close is the safe to the bed? You might have slept through it.”
“It’s under the bed,” she muttered disgustedly. “I didn’t even want the damned thing, but he’s law enforcement, and what are you gonna do?”
“I,” said Jason softly in Burton’s ear, “am going to take my safecracking equipment under the bed.”
Burton didn’t answer, he was busy fielding discussion from Eric and Brady, and, oh hey, Ace and Sonny were approaching the roadblock.
“Well, maybe you should put on your prettiest dress and go dancing next week,” Cotton said. “And if he doesn’t want to go, I’ll take you.”
She laughed girlishly. “Oh, baby. I wish this was the sort of place that had that for you. You must be from Vegas or LA—out here, if I took you dancing, we’dbothbe dead in the morning. But here’s my phone. You sure your brother will be able to pick you up?”
Burton heard Cotton’s click in his ear. “Lee?” he said.
